LSD

Lysergic acid diethylamide, often shortened to LSD, comes from ergot, a parasitic fungus that can be found in grains. Chemists rearrange the fungus' chemical structure or the structure of an ergot derivative through complex chemical reactions, transforming it into the hallucinogenic bicycle-shaped LSD crystal. Due to the partially synthetic drug's criminalization, many of the details of modern LSD crafting honed by "underground chemists" are kept secret.

During the summer of 1951, the French town of Pont-Saint-Esprit appeared to go mad. Hundreds were treated for hallucinations and delirium, and about 60 were institutionalized, with some reporting ongoing hallucinations a month after the LSD-like symptoms appeared. While debated, some historians and scientists argue the illness may have been ergotism, a perilous condition better known in the Middle Ages as "burning disease" and "St. Andrew's Fire."

Animal studies involving microdoses of psilocybin, the psychoactive component in magic mushrooms and ketamine, found it helped to alleviate anxiety and inflammation, an immune response that can cause damage when chronically active. Human studies are ongoing. In at least one double-blind study, where researchers and patients don't know who got a placebo versus the real thing, about half of the participants incorrectly guessed they had been given placebos.

Early scientific experiments suggested LSD could be effective in treating mental health conditions, such as substance use disorder. These findings were overshadowed in the US by stories of dangerous street use and claims of lasting adverse effects, leading to LSD's criminalization and strangling scientific studies for decades. Psychedelics have since made their way back to the lab, where they are again being studied for potential medical applications.

As "Brave New World" author Aldous Huxley lay dying of cancer in 1963, he asked his wife Laura to dose him with the hallucinogen LSD. A month later, Laura Huxley wrote a letter detailing the author's final trip, which she notes ended "so slowly, so gently, like a piece of music just finishing in a sempre piu piano dolcemente." Read the letter here.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine have a playlist to accompany psilocybin users on their psychedelic journeys. Dating back to 1967, the playlist is over seven hours long and organized in such a manner as to echo users’ experiences as their trips rise, crest, and fall. According to the initial creator of the playlist, the music is a “nonverbal support system” that keeps users from prematurely returning to normal consciousness.